For years, this quote hung above my desk:

95% of people talk about writing a book.

30% of people start writing a book.

3% finish it.

It’s confession time: I have never completed a full-length novel. I’ve written several picture books and one chapter book. Okay. That’s nice. Most picture-book manuscripts are less than 1,000 words; my chapter book numbers about 10,000 words. Novels, almost by definition, are usually more than 50,000.

You may remember my references to Bone Girl, a children’s novel I’m writing. Is it finished? Nope. I have just one scene left to write, one pivotal day I must create, before I can type those two beautiful words: The End.

But, alas, I don’t know enough about equestrian endurance riding to write that scene. I’ve stumbled upon a great book, Endurance Riding 101 by Aarene Storms, and because the two local library systems would not (Spokane County Library) or could not (Spokane Public Library) get this book for me, I downloaded the Kindle app onto my laptop and bought the book. I felt really proud of myself for doing this. After reading Endurance 101, I made a mad dash to this computer and rewrote the first draft.

But I need to see an endurance ride before I can accurately describe it. So, I volunteered to help with a ride in early April. I hope by doing so, I can give plausibility to my final scenes and finish the draft.   

In the meantime, since I’ve gone about as far as I can go with Bone Girl, I’m turning my attentions to a supernatural romance, The Celebration House, that I started writing in 2008. Yesterday, I wrote my one-sentence pitch with which I will woo agents. (Say that fast three times). Here it is:

The Celebration House is the story of a terminally ill woman who meets the man of her dreams when she purchases and restores an antebellum mansion to be used as a venue for life’s celebrations.

What’s really fun about revisiting this manuscript is using cuss words and writing scenes of, shall we say, a more adult nature. Hey, that’s not easy when one of the characters has been dead for 150 years. I’m aiming for ghostly seduction. Okay, truthfully, I just want to finish the book.

Hands and arms inside the cart, please. Next: I audition for a play. Yikes!